


Two Centuries of Dreaming (Two Centuries of Drowning)

by LectorEl



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker and Quynh both need therapy, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, F/M, Formerly titled 'Mine - Notes From a Decade', Gen, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Relationships, content warnings for, learning self-care by dissociating from your body, this . . . is not therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26411758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: The first time Quynh puts a collar on him, it’s leather.Bits and pieces about Quynh and Booker.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	1. Choke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EbbaTriesToWrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbbaTriesToWrite/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921873) by [EbbaTriesToWrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbbaTriesToWrite/pseuds/EbbaTriesToWrite). 



> Originally drabbles solely set in Ebba's fic 'Mine', now expanded out into other variants.
> 
> (Because the author is deeply predictable, and 'Queerplatonic but make it fucked up' is basically my brand at this point.)

The first time Quynh puts a collar on him, it’s leather, with a locking buckle and a D-ring where the lead is clipped. Quynh locks the lead’s other end to the coathook on the back door. The collar is little too tight around his throat, a pressure that tugs at his awareness despite his best effort to ignore it. But she’s kind enough to leave him a chair, so he can sit instead of stand, and it’s - bearable, at first.

The hours pass. Booker runs restless fingers over the collar, probing for weak points. It's alright for Quynh to collar him, but Booker needs to be able to run if someone else comes after them. The lock fastens through two holes Quynh punched in the leather. The spring clasp attaching the lead to the collar is immobile, slick to the touch. Quynh super-glued it shut, he thinks.

He slumps in the chair, thoughtless, and chokes at the collar's pulls. He flails, 

overbalancing, 

the lead pulls up, to one side

dragging the collar tight against his jaw

the rope pulls tight

there’s nothing under his feet

He gags, thrashing

_ he  _

_ can’t  _

_ breathe _

Quynh’s voice brings him back, sharp and tight with fury, sound without form, meaning. 

Winter steals his understanding, ice in his limbs, the noose’s strangling grip dragging him back into the terror of hanging. 

only Quynh’s bruising grip around his wrists keeping him from falling entirely.

The sharp bright pain of a blade, cutting into flesh, blood spilling as leather falls away.

Sound resolves into words. “ _ Mine _ , Booker, you are  _ mine _ , you are  _ not allowed to leave me _ .” 

“Yes,” Booker rasps. “Yes, always, Quynh. I promise, please,  _ please _ -” 

Quynh brings back the metal collar, the next time she goes out. 

_(Her hands are gentle when she closes it around his neck, gaze fond._

_"You're mine. You can't leave anymore," Quynh says, satisfied. "I won't let you."_

_Booker nods, leaning gratefully into Quynh’s hold. “Yours,” he agrees.)_


	2. Responsibilities

Quynh’s moods fluctuate, and with them, what she needs from Booker. Some weeks Booker’s job is to help her wash and dress, to cook her meals and coax her into eating.   


Some weeks, his job is to do nothing at all, sleeping away empty hours collared and chained to the wall of their latest residence, waiting to suffer and die at her hands, and gasp back to life for her to kill again.

Quynh is getting better. More and more, Booker’s job is simply to obey her orders, and bare his throat to her teeth.

Quynh likes his hair long. On her good days, she prefers it clean and soft to the touch, smooth like silk in her hands, hanging loose for her to play with. Days when her rage burns and flares, she likes it to be tied back, giving her an easy point to dig her fingers in and  _ pull _ , until Booker stumbles and falls to his knees before her.

And what she desires, Booker gives. Booker had never shown his hair much attention, until Quynh required it of him. Booker has never taken such care of any part of himself, until his body stopped being his, and became Quynh’s property instead.


	3. Mathmatics Lessons

Booker is an experienced practitioner of the art of death and self destruction. 200 years and an inability to find his ending have granted him an expertise in how far an immortal body can be pushed before it fails. 

Dehydration’s surprisingly peaceful. Its timeframe is largely environmental - dry heat can mean death in two days, damper conditions can extend the timeline up to eight. Starvation, on the other hand, takes anywhere from eight to twelve hellish weeks if caloric intake is completely ceased, and considerably longer if caloric intake is cut only to beneath the metabolic minimum. 

The more violent deaths are defined by variables: bloodless is an equation of wound size multiplied by pulse rate, divided by body mass; overdose a calculation of dosage squared by tolerance, and withdrawal, dependence squared by time.

Drowning is complicated. Three to five minutes is the average, but with practice, with the right conditions, the timeline stretches out. Nine minutes. Ten. Eleven. Twel -

Hanging’s quicker, even done badly. At least at first, when terror and adrenaline spark the urge to fight and claw at the noose, wasting precious air denying the inevitable. The second time’s slower, when waking and winter rob the limbs of the strength. Each time takes a little longer, as the body learns to accept it’s new eternity. Until drowning and hanging run parallel, dying and being resurrected in tandem.

Drowning, Booker learned from Quynh. Before anything else about immortality, before the lessons on loss and failure, before Andy and Nicky and Joe, there was Quynh, and the crushing weight of water.


End file.
